USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 5
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It cannot be said that the Province of New Netherland had hither- to yielded the West India Company any very large profits. In the year preceding Van Twiller's arrival, the largest figure in the ex- ports of furs had been reached-143,125 florins. But imports of vari- ous goods and wares for the support of the colonists and to purchase peltries to the amount of 31,320 florins, offset the other; while in 1631 there had been no exports at all, and the imports at the cost of the Company had amounted to 17,355 florins. De Laet, the historian of the Company, and one of its directors, sums up the exports and im- ports for nine years from 1624 to 1632, and makes the total of the one 454,127 florins, and of the other 272,847 florins; leaving a net gain of 181,280 florins, or $72,512, a little over $8,000 per annum.
Surely this was nothing to boast of by the side of the millions yielded by the single happy capture of a silver fleet. But the well-lined coffers of the Company, as a result of these more brilliant exploits, enabled them to put funds into Van Twiller's hands for the purpose of making things more comfortable and attractive on Manhattan Island, thereby inducing larger colonization, and securing eventually more satisfactory returns. At once upon Van Twiller's arrival, preparations were begun for completing the fort. Its walls were now strongly faced with stone on the inside. Barracks for the sol- diers were built along the west wall, and a commodious house for the Governor along the east wall, inside the quadrangle. The principal gate was on the north, guarded by a small redoubt called a horn, where Bowling Green is now. There was a small gate on the water- side, for the river came close up against the fort, all that ground now forming Battery Park having been since filled in. A saw mill was erected on Nooten (now Governor's) Island. A windmill also was placed upon the southeast corner of the fortifications, thus strangely combining the pursuits of peace and war; though it may well be that the mill also effectively served the purposes of war. The savages must have looked with awe and alarm upon the strange object with its wildly gyrating arms.
An interesting feature of the present administration was the divi- sion of the territory of the lower portion of Manhattan Island into
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farms, carefully measured and numbered. These farms bore a name in Dutch which has become quite familiar in our city's history, and still designates a famous and somewhat unique thoroughfare. The Dutch name was " Bouwerij " or " Bouwerei," meaning land to be cultivated; but the form of the word has been anglicized phoneti- cally into Bowery. There were six of these " bouweries." A tract called the "Company's Garden " stretched from the fort to about Wall Street on the west of Broadway, a very narrow strip, as the ground covered by Greenwich and Washington Streets was not yet " made." Beyond this garden lay farm No. 1, reaching perhaps about as far as Chambers Street. No. 3 went up to the borders of the later Greenwich village, and No. 5 must have included the territory thus designated subsequently. On the east side of a road which after- ward became famous as our Broadway, lay farms 2, 4, and 6, of which No. 4 embraced the spot then sometimes called the " plain of Man- hattan," subsequently better known as the Commons and City Hall Park. Thus were the farms laid out; but they were by no means all occupied. It is upon these silent solitudes of tangled forests, and weedy creeks, and sluggish ponds, with only here and there a fur- rowed field, or rolling pasture, and scarce a house anywhere, that now are seen the huge " cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces " of business. As more colonists came out, and occasional vessels arrived with cattle and horses, the agricultural returns were increas- ingly encouraging. Besides ordinary farm products, canary seed was experimented with, even the " Arms of Amsterdam," in 1626, carrying specimens of that article. But there was undoubted suc- cess attained in the cultivation of tobacco. Two Englishmen from Virginia, George Holmes and Thomas Hall, introduced its culture, and they were given a generous reception among the colonists. Bv a somewhat artificial expedient Fort Amsterdam, as the settlement was called, was made the beneficiary of the fur trade going on throughout the whole province. It was given the stapel-recht, or " staple-right," which Holland's earliest Count Dirk had bestowed upon his capital city of Dortrecht somewhere about the middle of the eleventh century. That is, all the peltries gathered throughout New Netherland by Dutch vessels had to be brought to Manhattan, there to be weighed or priced, and some kind of duty exacted before final shipment. De Laet's records show that in 1633 peltry exports had fallen off from the previous year to only 91,375 florins' worth. But in 1635 they had again run up to the value of 134,925 florins ($53,770); but, as is seen, even this was less than the exports of 1632. Hence the West India Company continued to complain of their unprofitable venture in the untoward climate of North America, compared to what they drew from the more genial coasts of Guiana and Brazil.
In the same ship with Director Van Twiller arrived the Rev. Ever- ardus Bogardus (in Dutch. Evert Bogert) to be the pastor of the
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
church already organized, and the first schoolmaster, Adam Roe- landsen. There may not have been a very great number of children on the island, or perhaps their desire for learning was not consum- ing. At any rate Schoolmaster Roelandsen found it expedient, in addition to his pedagogical duties, to assume the conduct of a " bleekery," or bleachery; that is, a washing establishment, such as are carried on upon a large scale in Holland by reason of the enor- mous quantities of linen possessed by every household. The school was undoubtedly held in connection with the church, and probably in the same building.
For a church edifice there now soon arose, in the wake of that ac- tivity in building which came with the advent of the new Director. It cannot be said that a large expenditure of money was permitted for this sacred purpose, as compared with those for civic structures. " Rude materials " it is told us, very likely plain boards, were used in its construction. What its shape was is not recorded, but it was later compared to a barn by Captain de Vries. It stood where now we find 33 Pearl Street. Gradually clusters of houses followed the lines of the fort or the contour of the shore. The river front came up as far as Pearl Street in that early day, and the block from present Whitehall Street to Broad, was called "the Strand " (or " the Water " sometimes). Among the rude neighboring houses or cabins of the congregation rose now this modest ecclesiastical edifice, the first to grace or bless Manhattan Island. Perhaps a " pastorie " or parsonage was soon built for Domine Bogardns, on Whitehall near Bridge, or Bridge near Whitehall, depending upon what part of the lot the house was put. Bogardus was a widower, however, at this time, and may not have been in a hurry for a house. We shall find as the years go on that the Domine was not of a mild temperament. He felt called upon to pay his compliments publicly to Director Van Twiller, rebnking him for alleged malfeasance in office. He called him a " child of the devil " (cen duyrel's kind), and promised to give him a shake from the pulpit. And under Kieft things came to a pass much worse. It is rather sad to note these unfriendly relations be- tween the civil and religious powers, as compared with the excellent harmony and co-operation existing under Minnit.
Walter Van Twiller was not altogether undeserving of the threat- ened pulpit shake-up. He was given to land speculation on a large scale. The scale was only large in the way of acres then: could his transactions have been transferred to these days, it would have been enormous also in the way of dollars. He made use of his official posi- tion to get possession of Pagganck, or Nut Island (now Governor's); and to match this insular property he quite symmetrically added to it a few other islands in the East River. Some of his council fol- lowed so excellent an example and voted themselves a goodly portion of Greater New York. Fifteen thousand acres on Long Island, now
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
including the Town of Flatlands, a part of Brooklyn, were thus di- vided between them. It was a strange fact that while the six com- pany farms were poorly stocked and hardly profitable, Van Twiller and his henehmen were signally prosperous as farmers. Lubbertus Van Dineklagen, who had succeeded Notelman as Schout, remon- strated with the Director-Gen- eral; so he was dismissed from his office, minns arrears for salary, and shipped to Hol- land. But this act of disci- pline proved a sort of boom- erang for the Director. Ilis official irregularities, his fre- quent debaucheries, his ex- ceedingly questionable private life, were plainly laid before the West India Company by Van Dineklagen. Indeed, the case against Van Twiller ap- peared so clear that he was WATER GATE, FOOT OF WALL STREET. dismissed from his office. He seemed to care little for the disgrace, remaining in the colony to make the most that he could of his lands, possessing, besides his islands in the East River, a colony on Staten Island, and a tobacco plantation and dwelling house on Manhattan. Ile also dealt in cattle, with great success; for in the general dearth of cattle he profited largely by letting out his own abundant and excellent stock to his neighbors.
William Kieft, the next Director-General of New Netherland, reached Manhattan or Fort Amsterdam on March 28, 1638. Of his antecedents very little is known, and that little not of a savory char- acter. Once a bankrupt in business, and accused, though not convict- ed, of having defrauded captives in Turkish power of their ransom, it is hard to understand why the West India Company sent out a person of a reputation so shady to be the chief personage in their col- ony of New Netherland. They must have held the enterprise there in supreme contempt, especially when almost at the same time they sent out as their Governor-General in Brazil no less a person than John Maurice, Count of Nassau, a cousin of the Prince of Orange. Tradition has it that Kieft was a man of small stature. His mind was no larger than his body; he was self-willed and vindictive, and by his cruelty, born perhaps of timidity, he brought shame and disaster alike upon the Dutch name and the Dutch possessions. He came pre- pared to exercise to the full the petty tyranny in which such a soul as his would particularly delight. His council consisted of a single per- son, Dr. John de la Montagne, who had fled to Holland from persecu- tion in his native France. To make this arrangement more farcical
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HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
still, he gave one vote to the doctor and claimed two for himself. It seems impossible that the West India Company should have ordered or sanctioned a scheme of government so ridiculous as this. There was a provincial secretary, Cornelins Van Tienhoven, and a Schout-fiscal, as before. But Kieft was determined to be sovereign in the colony. " I have more power here," he said at one time, " than the Company itself; therefore, I may do and allow in this country what I please. 1 am my own master, for I have my commission not from the Company, but from the States-General." The prospects of the iufant colony could not have been of the brightest, with such a man to direct their affairs.
Yet there was much to raise people's expectations at the beginning of the reign of William the Testy. Kieft was a man of energy and business activity. Among the first things he did was to put in good order the Company's bouweries, and as the promise of better terms and vigorous management was made widely known in the home coun- try, a number of colonists of the better class began to come over. These leased or purchased tracts of land in various portions of Greater New York. Ex-Director Van Twiller, pocketing the disgrace of his removal, added to his former plantations by leasing Company's farm No. 5, embracing the later Village of Greenwich, a tract called by the Indians Sapohanican. Not to be behind his chief, Andreas Hudde, the ex-conneilor, not satisfied with the part ownership of Flatlands, secured the lease of two hundred acres of land in the northeast corner of Manhattan, or part of the present Harlem. In the vicinity, or in that part of Harlem lying between Eighth Avenue and the Harlem River, was Councilor La Montagne's plantation of " Vre- dendael " (Peacedale), and Secretary Van Tienhoven leased and oper- ated a farm on the Harlem exactly opposite, thus near Motthaven. Joachim Petersen Kuyter had another plantation bordering on the Harlem, which he styled Zegendael (Blissvale), and Jonas Bronck opposite him, cultivated a tract running from the Harlem to the Bronx River, naming it " Emmaus." Meanwhile de Vries had come to the colony again late in 1638, and started a colony on Staten Island for the Patroon Cornelius Melyn, who arrived with Kuyter in 1639. De Vries also settled on a farm on Manhattan about two miles north of the fort. Coney Island was embraced within a lease then given, and later Kieft purchased from the Indians for the Company a tract of land reaching from Coney Island to Gowanus, opposite Governor's Island.
Last, but by no means least, must be mentioned Adriaen Vander Donck, who came to Manhattan from Rensselaerswyck, a doctor of laws, and a Jonkheer, or Yonker, a kind of squire or night. For im- portant services rendered he acquired, in 1646, as Patroon, a large tract of land running north along the Hudson from Spusten Duyvil Creek beyond the present Yonkers (which derives its name from him),
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r
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and back to the Saw Mill River. Thus another portion of Greater New York was occupied, and a man of importance, who made his presence notably felt in later years, was added to the population gath- ering around the fort.
NEW AMSTERDAM IN 1656.
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Before the Indian wars which devastated the Greater New York territory from one end to the other during Kieft's term had reached their height, several remarkable settlements had taken place within that territory. These were made by varions people of the Anabap- tist persnasion, who were subjected to fierce persecution in the col- onies controlled by the Puritans. In New Netherland they received a hearty welcome. They were permitted to lease or purchase land on favorable terms. Prominent among the leaders of these companies were two ladies, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and Lady Moody. Mrs. Hutchinson came first to Massachusetts in 1634, but in 1638 she was forced into exile. Then for a while she sought refuge in Rhode Island, but after her husband's death she came to New Netherland, feeling more secure from the arm of Puritan persecution there. In 1642 she and her adherents settled at Pelham Neck, where the Hutch- inson River still flows in that extreme northeast corner of the an- nexed district, to remind ns of her presence. A year later Lady Moody settled at Gravesend, Long Island, lately incorporated into Brooklyn, now gnite at the southern limit of Greater New York. She had sought freedom of opinion in religion near Salem, Mass,, and was for a time a member of the Congregational church there. But her convictions regarding infant baptism could not be tolerated. So she broke up a very flourishing and well-appointed settlement, and trans- ferred it to Kieft's domain, the tract now called Gravesend being assigned to her. A strongly fortified honse marked the center of the new plantation, about which clustered the honses of friends aud dependents. There was a stockade surrounding these dwellings, and the farm lands lay outside. Lady Moody took no chances on the In- dians, and it was well she was so prudent, as she soon had reason to find out. In 1642 a company of Anabaptists, 1. der the leadership of Rev. Francis Doughty, received a grant or lease of land at " Mes- pat." or Maspeth. Long Island : after the Indians had wiped om this plantation, some dis- pute arising betweet the min- ister and his followers as to the proprietary rights to Mes- CHURCH AND GOVERNOR'S HOUSE IN FORT. pat. Mr. Doughty and others. in 1645, took np land where the Village of Flushing is now located. And finally, in 1643. JJohn Throgmorton and thirty-five Ana- baptist families received permission to settle in that part of The Bronx Borongh which includes Throgg's Neck, a name derived from that of the leader of these refugees.
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As shall appear later, Kieft was not mich of a religions man, and it may be his indifference to religion that made him so tolerant of all seets. For, in addition to the above instances, which may be set to his credit or discredit, as it may please the reader, it is to be remem- bered that it was during his administration that notable protection was afforded to the Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Jognes and Bressani. The story of Jognes's heroism and sufferings and final murder by the Mohawks in 1646 is a familiar one. In 1643, sadly tortured and mi- tilated, he was rescued and ransomed from the fierce savages at Rens- selaerswyck, near Albany, and brought down to Fort Amsterdam. Director Kieft treated him with the greatest consideration, gave him money, and sent him to France free of charge, in one of the Com- pany's ships. Father Jogues has left on record his impressions of life on Manhattan Island. It is from him we learn that no less than eighteen languages could be heard in the colony; and he was aston- ished at the variety of creeds represented and tolerated there on equal terms. Father Bressani was ransomed from the Iroquois for a good round sum, just as he was about to be burned at the stake, in 1644. He too was sent to France, via Holland, free of charge. These inci- dents are certainly among the pleasantest to record, and reflect credit on Kieft and the Company from whatever point of view we choose to look at them.
We must now turn, however, to the darker side of William the Testy's administration-the story of the long and cruel Indian wars. It begins with a tale of unprovoked murder and its revenge, inevit- able according to the savage code. Away back in 1626 three servants of Director Minnit, all of whom are said to have been negroes, were at work on the edge of the pond called the " Collect," in later times. It was located at the bottom of that depression in Centre Street. slop ing down from Broome Street on the north and Reade Street on the south, the Tombs prison nuitil lately ocenpying its site. While en- gaged in cutting wood, an Indian man and boy appeared on the scene, the boy being the man's nephew. They were carrying a lot of beaver skins to be traded for trinkets at the fort. The negroes, tempted by the valuable furs, killed the adult Indian, but the boy escaped. He vowed vengeance, and quietly bided his time. Fifteen years after, an Indian suddenly entered the shop of Claes Swits (or Smits), a wheel- wright, living far out near Turtle Bay, or in the vicinity of Forty-fifth Street and the East River, attacked the occupant with a tomahawk while his back was turned, and murdered him in cold blood. The as- sailant was the nephew of the Indian killed in 1626, and belonged to the tribe of the Weckquaesgecks. The tribe having been summoned to surrender the murderer, refused to give him up.
It would not do to leave so bold a murder unpunished, for the effect of this would be to multiply such events indefinitely, a condition fatal to the plantation of the territory. So nothing remained but to de-
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clare war against the savage foe. For this important step, however, Kieft was not prepared to take the responsibility upon himself and the conneil so peculiarly constituted. The situation, therefore, actu- ally forced him to make a concession that temporarily converted the colonial oligarchy he had fondly planned to establish into the freest kind of democratic state. All the heads of families were summoned to meet on " Thursday, August 29, 1641,"-a date worth noting- " for the consideration of some important and necessary matters " pertaining to the common weal. Out of this assembly twelve men were chosen, with De Vries as chairman, who should be allowed to settle the question of the expedieney of making war on the Indians. We find upon the list of names those of Jan Jansen Damen, who later had a farm running from Broadway to the East River, just north of Wall Street ; also Joachim Kuyter, of Zegendael on the Harlem, and Joris (or George) Rapalye, of the Wallabout, or Walloon Bay. By the advice of De Vries, who had had some experience in Indian war- fare, and knew both how to intimidate and to pacify Indians, the committee of twelve recommended that efforts should be further made to induce the Weckquaesgecks to give up the offender. But the committee went a little beyond the purpose of their appointment, for they thought that this was too good a chance to let go for bringing the arbitrary Kieft to terms in the matter of popular rights. They demanded an increase in the council from one to five members, the fonr additional ones to be selected from the twelve. Kieft reme- tantly yielded, granting the council thus enlarged judiciary powers. and only occasionally a voice in public affairs generally. Protection too gained its first foothold on Manhattan Island, New Englanders being forbidden to sell cows and goats in New Netherland. Thus Walter Van Twiller could not be underbid in his sales of these useful chattels, and the prevention of their increase by importation would not be lessening his terms for hiring them out.
In March, 1642, the Weekquaesgeeks, having still failed to surren- der the murderer of Smits, war was declared. A force of eighty men under one Ensign Van Dyck, marched against their villages in West- chester County, with orders to destroy by fire and by sword. But somehow the army lost its way in the woods and the darkness, and failed to reach the Indians. Nevertheless, the demonstration had the effect of a very wholesome fright. A conference was held at Bronck's house and peace effected on the promise that the murderer would be surrendered. Although the promise was not kept, yet this peace con- eluded the first episode of the war.
Isolated murders kept on oceming at various points in the vicinity of Manhattan Island, exasperating the not too placid temper of Will- iam the Testy. It must have been on this account that he was pro- voked into an act of atrocity quite worthy of his savage neighbors themselves. The Indians in the territory of Greater New York and
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in New Jersey belonged to the general family of the Algonquins. During a raid of the Indians of the " Five Nations " of the Iroquois family, carrying their ever-victorions arms down toward the month of the Hudson, a member of Algonquin tribes took refuge among the Dutch settlers. One party tled to De Vries's plantation on Staten Island; a second eneamped on Planck's farm at. Paulus Hook, oppo- site Manhattan, in New Jersey; and a third crossed the North River, not stopping till they had quite traversed the island, and huddled to- gether in terror among the woods on Corlaer's Ilook, jutting into the East River opposite the Wallabont. Kieft was informed of the incur- sion of these Indians. It is possible he may have supposed their pur- pose was hostile. At any rate, he gave orders to attack the camps
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PALISADES ALONG WALL STREET.
at Paulus Hook and at Corlaer's Hook. On the night of February 27, 1643, eighty men, women, and children were ruthlessly destroyed on the Jersey shore, and on that of the 28th a similar ontrage cansed the destruction of forty men, women, and infants at Corlaer's Hook. These unpardonable acts could only have one result. They kindled the flames of war and vengeance among all the surrounding tribes in JJersey, in Westchester County, on Staten Island, on Long Island. Knyter's farm and buildings were destroyed on the Harlem. Bronck was probably murdered then. Anne Hutchinson's settlement was raided, the good woman herself killed, and her little eight-year-old daughter captured. Throgmorton and his friends suffered great loss of lives and goods. Mr. Doughty's plantation at Maspeth was entirely swept away, and only the excellent precautions taken by Lady Moody at Gravesend enabled her to repel successfully three fierce attacks by Indian warriors. Efforts to restore peace were repeatedly made by
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the now thoroughly frightened Kieft, but mostly in vain. A congress of sachems met at Rockaway at one time, and the fearless De Vries, who possessed the confidence of the Indians, went out to represent the director. While quiet was thus restored at one point, hostilities would break out again at another. An expedition was sent to Staten Island under Ensign Van Dyck, and one to Westchester under Cap- tain John Underhill. They did good work at fighting the Indians, and inspired them with a wholesome fear. But peace was not finally established on a firm basis until Angust, 1645. On the 25th of that month a solemn assembly of citizens and Indian chiefs met within the walls of Fort AAmsterdam and signed a treaty. The terms were that all cases of injury to person or property on either side were to be laid before the respective anthorities. No armed Indian was to come within the line of the settlement ; no colonist was to visit the Indian villages without a native to escort him. In celebration of the peace, and in recognition of an overruling Providence who had thus caused the reign of terror to come to a happy end, Director Kieft proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. On September 6, 1645, it was recommended that " in all places where there are any English or Dutch churches, God Almighty shall be thanked and praised."
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